


Unfurled

by Trojie



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-14
Updated: 2010-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt was 'Pink Floyd - Goodbye Blue Sky'. A short apocalyptic reincarnation fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfurled

It's a beautiful day, when the world falls in, birds singing and so forth. Lovely. Perfect. It's spring, and it's gorgeous, and Merlin's eyes are wider than the ocean and bluer than the space from horizon to horizon, and that's not the reaction to this life's first kiss that Arthur wanted.

Overhead the blue splinters and falls to pieces.

'Run,' Arthur says, chokes, and yanks his jumper up over his nose and mouth. He grabs Merlin by the elbow. 'Come on,' he growls through cloth and gas and stench. 'Run!'

'Just let me-' Merlin starts, but Arthur yanks him forward, ignoring his protests.

When he thinks they've reached a safer place, just under the broken concrete of a flyover that fell under the first onslaught, he pulls down his makeshift gasmask and hisses into Merlin's ear 'This is not the time to find out if your magic made it into this incarnation.' He puts all the vicious anger and sarcasm he can dredge out of the very corners of his being into it, wants Merlin to reel, to bruise from it, to take it seriously.

The drone of engines sounds like a death-sentence to Arthur. God knows he's heard enough of them.

'Why?' Merlin asks, peeking out from their little concrete nook. 'Why now? Why here?'

Arthur shrugs. 'We only ever remember when-' and he waves vaguely at the ruin of the world outside.

Merlin looks at him, really looks at him, like he used to, with that little smile in his eyes and that serious twist to his mouth, his stubborn chin. Whatever he's expecting to see in Arthur he obviously finds it, because he grins, wide and unafraid. This is what he's for, Arthur remembers. And that's not all. There's a weight on Arthur's belt he knows without looking is a gun, there's a pressure strapped to his thigh that's a knife, just in case. This is what I'm for, too.

This life's second kiss is sure and filthy and certain, and it happens as the sky greys over with leaden chaos. Merlin licks the corner of Arthur's mouth, grazes his bottom lip, ghosts his palms down Arthur's back and over his arse, finding the knife-handle and stroking at it while he grins hot against the space beneath Arthur's ear. Arthur in turn bites, pushes a knee forward, manhandles Merlin up against the ruined flyover's pillar.

When they're done - and what difference does a bit of extra mess make, there'll be mud and blood and smutches enough later on to cover it - the knife has rubbed a raw place on Arthur's skin and Merlin's eyes are lit gold as they venture out into the smoke-blackened air, and Arthur knows it'll be a long time before he sees blue again.


End file.
